


When the fire goes out

by IgnorantArmies



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Murdocks always get back up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:32:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4132507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IgnorantArmies/pseuds/IgnorantArmies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She promised she’d always be there to patch him up – and nothing beyond that, they’d both agreed – but a little shiver still skitters down her back every time he says her name. Even when (okay, especially when) he’s all busted up and at her mercy.</p><p>“Claire…” His voice is faint down the phone line, and she almost misses the next part: “I need you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a Tumblr post asking for a fic about Matt freaking out when he loses his abilities after a fight... (I can't for the life of me find the original post so please let me know if you know who requested it!)
> 
> Er, so it was only meant to be a two-parter but I sort of accidentally totally by mistake wrote another chapter. And then another one. And then... oh.

She promised she’d always be there to patch him up – and nothing beyond that, they’d both agreed – but a little shiver still skitters down her back every time he says her name. Even when ( _okay, especially when_ ) he’s all busted up and at her mercy.

“Claire…” His voice is faint down the phone line, and she almost misses the next part: “I need you.”

She hates herself for clutching the phone tighter to her ear, and tries to keep her tone neutral. Businesslike. She has a job to do, after all. “Matt, where are you?”

A crash in the background makes her wince, turning her cold. She doesn’t need heightened senses to hear that his breathing is ragged and shot through with pain. “Claire… I can’t…”

Car horns. Something smashes. The line scratches out.

“Matt?”

The silence stretches out too long and the coldness grips at her guts. Every time he calls a precarious balance of dread and excitement hangs over her. And the thoughts she won’t ever say aloud, always in the back of her mind. _What if this is the last time? What if this is the time you can’t save him?_

“Matt!”

Finally, the sound of his breathing comes through the receiver again. Even heavier this time, and edged with panic. Something she hasn’t heard before.

“I don’t… I don’t know what to do,” he whispers.

Her whole body is hunched around the phone, as if that might somehow protect him. Her medical training kicks in and she forces herself to sit up straight; to focus. She recognises the slur of a concussion in his broken voice. _Goddamnit, Matt, don’t pass out now._

“Tell me where you are.”

“My place,” he murmurs. “Please, Claire. I need you.”

She’s out the door before he finishes the sentence.

 

#

 

She has her own key. It’s not a big deal. It just makes sense, given that she gets a ‘come-stitch-me-up’ phone call at least every couple of weeks. And the hand-over ceremony hadn’t exactly been what you’d call romantic. A few months before, he’d taken a tire iron to the jaw and she’d been the lucky one who got to come over after a sixteen hour shift to pack his cheek with gauze. Woozy on painkillers, he’d grinned up at her through bloody teeth and announced, “I cuh you a yare key.”

“I told you not to talk,” she scolded, too tired to even roll her eyes.

“A _hare_ _key_ ,” he tried again, as if heavier emphasis would make it clearer.

She sighed, pinged off her gloves, and slapped them into her lap. “Fine. What the hell are you trying to say?”

He mimed unlocking a door in mid-air, pointed to the kitchen behind him, then pointed back at her. “Hor you.”

She raised an eyebrow, “ _Whore_ me?”

That made him laugh, which evidently hurt. She smirked. _Serves you right, Murdock._

Claire let out an exasperated groan as she went over to the kitchenette to see what he meant. “You really know how to charm a lady, what with the drooling and the name-calling,” she said, twisting her lips into a smile when she glanced back to see him surreptitiously wiping his chin.

“I’m sowwy,” he called over his shoulder.

She paused at the counter. A shiny new key sat there by the fruit bowl. “A key. For me,” she said quietly. Too quiet for a normal person to hear but-

“Yeah,” Matt replied. “I dort it migh come in yooful.”

She regained her composure in less than a second. She was good at that. Shutting things away. Not letting them sting. She swiped the key off the countertop and slid it into her pocket, spinning back to the couch. “And I thought I told you not to talk.”

 

#

 

She has her own key, and she hates the way it reminds her how easy it would be to go beyond… whatever this is. Reminding her that she could see him any time she wanted to. Not that she would. It’s not like that. It can’t be. He’s just another job. Like a private patient. Except she’s not getting paid for this shit.

The lock is clunky and makes a creaking sound when she turns the key. She wonders if it’s a coincidence or a subtle auditory security measure he set up so he’s never caught by surprise. She imagines him sitting alone in the darkness, meditating, or practising roundhouse kicks with his stupid mask on… Except she only gets to see him on his off nights, doesn’t she? And he sounded more than just beat up on the phone. He was worried. Desperate, even.

She eases the door open and takes a tentative step into the apartment. Dark and silent – no sign that anyone’s home. But then, it’s always like that – the Spartan lounge, the fastidious kitchen, the seamless silk sheets – _but let’s not think about that room_. Such a lonely, quiet place. If she didn’t know him better, she’d feel sorry for him.

She scans the living room, squinting in the low light. Everything is in order – the damage from his last ‘house guest’ has been repaired. She clutches her kit bag tighter. Maybe he never made it home.

“Matt?” she calls softly.

No answer.

A quick check behind the kitchen island. A peek inside the bedroom. _God it smells like him_. The bathroom. Nothing. Panic prickles up her spine.

The only sound to be heard is the rain streaking down the windows. The perpetual glow of the billboard sends long shadows across the room, criss-crossing the floor with the outline of skylights.

Claire bolts for the stairs. _The roof. That’s how he sneaks in and out, all decked out like freaking Batman…._

She stumbles to a stop at the landing and stifles a gasp with her hand.

“Oh Matt…”

He made it as far as the first staircase down from the skylight entrance. His body lies where he must have fallen – face down on the wooden walkway, legs trailing up the steps, clothes torn and soaked with more than just rain.

She jolts into action, throws down her med kit and kneels close to his side, making quick preliminary checks. Unconscious. Breathing shallow. Pulse weak. The usual signs of a fistfight on his face but no major head wounds. Abdomen bleeding from god knows how many injuries.

She peels the mask up over his head and rests her palm against his cheek.

“Matt. Can you hear me?” Her voice is clear. Authoritative. This is no time to be sentimental. _No time to let him hear you crack._

No response. She resists the urge to shake him. Great. _Another magical mystery tour of what the hell happened to the wannabe vigilante._

She pulls on a pair of blue medical gloves and starts inspecting his body methodically, immediately finding the source of the majority of the blood. A peppering of lacerations all the way down his left side. Broken glass, most likely. Mostly superficial but a few deeper cuts, probably plenty still harbouring fragments. And beneath that, almost certainly a couple of broken ribs. He grunts in response to the probing of her fingers. _Good. You need to wake up._

She switches to his other side – more cuts, more bruising, and a rapidly swelling shoulder joint that looks like it’s been…

“Jesus, Matt,” she sighs, sitting back on her heels.

Dislocated. Nastily. The kind of injury you get when something big and heavy and probably concrete slams into you really fucking hard. Or maybe that should be the other way round. Throwing himself through a window would explain the glass. Hitting the ground from several storeys up would explain the shoulder. And then he’d got right back up and put the joint back into place himself, somehow.

She shakes her head as she watches his eyelids flicker with pain.

_It’s not how you hit the mat, it’s how you get back up._

She takes a few steadying breaths. She needs to move him. Clean the wounds. Stave off the effects of shock. A cold, hard stairway is not an ideal workspace, but she doesn’t like the thought of dragging him down a set of steps either. Before she can think of a third option Matt draws in a gasping breath and pushes himself up to his hands and knees with a groan, half-collapsing back down as he tries to put weight on his busted shoulder. She throws herself forward to help take his weight, nocking her own shoulder under his good side and wrapping her other arm around him. He recoils at her touch, grabbing her roughly, clumsily, and slamming her back against the balustrade.

“Wait, wait, it’s okay,” she says quickly, well aware of how easy it would be for him to pitch her over the hand rail.

His shaking hands brush over her face, “Claire? It’s you…”

A trickle of horror goes crawling down her neck. _Why doesn’t he recognise me?_ “Of course it’s me.”

He slumps back onto all fours, chest heaving, fighting for breath like a drowning man. His head bobs and sways as though he’s drunk. He lifts his chin slightly, the way he does when he’s trying to concentrate. Trying to listen. But with none of the surety and calmness she’s used to. His fingers clench into fists as panic and frustration surge over him. Blood drips onto the wooden walkway.

“Something’s wrong,” he pants, “I can’t-“

She wraps herself around him, trying to keep him still – he’s twitching, flinching violently, as if responding to a thousand undetectable threats from all around. His heartrate rockets beneath her palm.

“Matt, breathe.”

He twists, clings to her, his face inches from hers. “Help me.”

The desperation in his voice breaks her into pieces. She hushes him, pulls his head down to her shoulder, murmurs that it’s okay. And notices the blood trickling from his ear.

“Claire,” he whispers, “I can’t see.”

 

*   *   *

 

_The fire has gone out. In its place there is only cold, suffocating darkness. A black storm, too dense to push through. Every pulse of his heart makes his head throb. His balance spirals. Even his hearing is muffled. He can feel the warmth of Claire’s hands on his face, hear her voice faintly whispering, telling him to be still, to stop fighting, but the sharpness of the pain is the only thing he can hold onto._

_He wrenches himself out of her arms and staggers to his feet, hands flailing ahead of him. The void presses down on him. The sureness he usually feels has been sliced away, leaving him helpless. The outlines are still there if he focuses everything into looking for them, but the effort it takes to peer into the blackness is overwhelming. Terrifying. Every step drags him down again. Claire pulls at his arm, begging him to sit back down but he shakes her off – he has to keep moving, keep getting back up. That’s what Murdocks do._

_“Matt! Stairs!”_

_Claire’s voice cuts through the storm and he pauses for a moment, wanting to anchor himself onto her, wanting nothing more than to fall back into her arms and stay there, but something inside the darkness calls to him. Somewhere, deep inside, a fire still burns. A flicker of a smile lifts the corner of his mouth and he takes another step. Stairs are no match for a stubborn sonofabitch._

_He slides down the first four steps. His armpit slams down onto the handrail and he twists an ankle before he can right himself. The wood creaks beneath his feet, reverberating through his pounding head, swamping him with sensory confusion. He stumbles a few steps more – no semblance of grace left, but he’s past caring. If he can make it to the bottom of the stairs, to his own goddamn couch, then… he doesn’t know what then. He only knows that if he stops now then he might as well give up. He had to learn from scratch once before, he can do it again._

_Matt can feel Claire’s footsteps following him. She’s shouting now, calling him something he probably deserves. He waves her back. Twenty-three steps in the flight. Seven or so down. That’s… too much math for right now. He’s losing the ability to make his legs move. His brain screams out commands but his muscles flip it the bird. He shuffles more than walks now, slipping down sideways, no longer aware of where the hand rail is – he throws out an arm but all it finds is splinters and the raised edge of the steps as he falls into a roll and the darkness closes over his head like a hood._

 

*   *   *

 

Well. At least he’s downstairs.

She can’t lift him onto the couch so she makes a makeshift bed on the rug with cushions and blankets and watches as his breathing slowly stabilises. Then she gets to work. He’s gained a few extra injuries after his stair-descending acrobatics and she’s less gentle than she might be, partly to keep from her hands shaking, partly because he doesn’t deserve gentleness for the shit he just pulled.

The curve of his lip twitches when she starts probing for pieces of glass in the cuts on his side and he mutters something, tries to turn away from the pain, gropes for her hands and flinches when he feels the claggy rubber of the gloves instead of skin. She braces herself and is ready for the panic-stricken lunge this time, pushing his chest back down firmly when he tries to sit up.

“You’re safe,” she says quickly. “Matt, it’s me. You’re safe. At home. You need to stay still.”

His fingers claw at the blankets beneath him as he struggles to control a sudden attack of hyperventilation. Not for the first time, Claire wishes she had an anaesthetic strong enough to knock him out.

“It’s gone,” he pants, eyes staring past her. “Everything – I can’t… I can’t see. Can’t sense anything. It’s just… gone.”

There are tears in his eyes. Fear on his face. His body shudders under her hands. Claire’s heart tightens. She swallows the lump in her throat so her voice will come out clear. _Stay matter-of-fact. Sound like you know what’s going on. Reassure the patient. Keep him calm._

“You must have hit your head,” she says softly, “Screwed with your senses. It’s just a concussion. A bad concussion. It should be temporary.” Except she has no idea how his crazy super-senses work or if what she says is true. But he needs to think it is. And he can’t tell if she’s lying any more.

He relaxes a fraction.

“And throwing yourself down the stairs clearly didn’t fix anything,” she adds, just to see him smile.

He obliges, weakly, but it fades just as quickly as it comes.

“I’m lost, Claire.” His voice comes out so quiet she can barely catch the words.

“It’s okay,” she says, wincing at how pathetic that sounds right now.

He shakes his head and tears spill, streaking down the side of his face, making trails through the blood. “It’s like… treading water in the middle of the ocean.”

She’s glad he can’t see her wiping her eyes.

“Please. Stay with me,” he says.

She swallows the lump in her throat before answering, “I’m not going anywhere.”

His hand finds her forearm, fingers stroking a figure of eight. “Thank you, Claire.”

For a moment she swears she can hear both their heartbeats. Maybe she’s picking up some skills of her own. _Goddamnit, Claire, what did you come here for?_

She blows out a long breath and picks up the surgical tweezers again, making sure she adds a dose of disapproval to her voice this time. “I’m gonna be pulling glass out of you and sewing stitches for the next couple of hours, so you’re stuck with me, okay? Try to rest.”

He nods, letting his hand slide back down to the floor and closing his eyes. She finds an easy target and pinches out a shard of glass as big as her thumbnail from a cut across his ribs. He hisses out a breath.

“One down…” she mutters, dropping the fragment into a cereal bowl beside her. The full extent of the damage lies before her and she wonders how many times she will see him laid out bloody. She wishes she’d thought to make herself a coffee before she got started.

_It’s going to be a long night._


	2. Chapter 2

_A glow flickers in the darkness. Faint, delicate, but it’s there. By his side. Warm and constant. The only thing stopping him from drowning in the void._

_He keeps his eyes closed so that he can concentrate on the outline of her kneeling beside him – the only thing he can sense, aside from the stabbing in his side and the throb in his head. He follows the sound of her breath and the movement of her fingers and holds onto the lifeline as tightly as he can. She doesn’t talk while she works, except to sigh every time she discovers a new wound. He can pinpoint each one with razor-edged clarity, could measure the blood loss to the nearest millilitre, as if the only thing left in the universe is his battered body and the smell of her skin and the touch of her cool hands._

_Whenever she removes a shard of glass or pulls a suture tight, the glowing light flares and the world flashes into focus for a moment. He starts to anticipate each sensory blaze, trying to grasp the flame before it dies again. If she pauses too long between stitches or gives him a break from probing of the tweezers, the light fades away, leaving him buried alive in the quiet. He keeps the panic tamped down beneath the years of Sticks’ training – no space for doubt, no room for weakness – but the cold terror still seeps through, teasing and taunting those nine-year-old fears he thought he’d erased._

_Those first few days in the hospital after the accident he’d wake screaming, reaching out into the mist, heart bursting against his ribs, fingers tearing at the bandages around his face. Each time having to face the realisation that the world he knew was gone forever, replaced by a strobing, overwhelming clash of senses – too brash and raw at first to make any sense of. The calloused hands of his father would clasp around his wrists and comb through his hair. His dad’s cracking voice would whisper into the darkness, lying to him over and over again, saying it would be all right. Even back then Matt knew the truth of it; he was alone. Maybe he was always meant to be. Everyone leaves, in the end._

_“I’m not going anywhere,” Claire says. But he knows she can’t keep the promise. Not the way he wants her to. And he knows he can’t ask her to stay._

*   *   *

 

He’s ready for her next few attempts at glass-fishing and barely flinches, even when she gets to work over his broken ribs. His breathing has slowed so much she considers checking his pulse. He must be meditating for the pain, she thinks. One of these days she’s going to have to ask him where he learned that. If someone was picking glass out of a couple of dozen holes in her side she’d be swearing like a sailor.

Once she cleans off most of the blood, the scars of previous encounters stand out on his skin like lines on a map. She has to stop herself from running her fingers over them, tracing the pain back to its root, as if it might tell her why the hell he keeps doing this to himself. There’s one major puncture wound left, low down on his outer thigh, a triangle of glass as wide as her palm embedded deep inside. She’s been reluctant to take it out since it’s acting as a plug for the wound and she knows she’s going to have to deal with a hell of a lot of blood when she pulls it out. That, and causing Matt even more pain.

Screw the coffee. Why didn’t she bring a bottle of something stronger? She shouldn’t be performing procedures like this on a hardwood floor in a dark apartment, without proper anaesthetic. She doesn’t let herself think about what she would do if it all goes wrong.

She checks the wound on his leg one final time and considers just getting it over with, with no warning, but it doesn’t seem fair to do that to him with his senses dulled. An illusion of peace has settled on his face, as if he’s simply sleeping, but she can see the tension in his mouth, the twitch behind his eyelids.

_How many more times can you patch him up? How many more scars? How many more near-misses?_

She rests a hand on his good shoulder. She needs him awake for this one. “Matt?”

He jolts back to consciousness, jabbing out a defensive elbow in her direction. She dodges – but only just – and scoots back on her knees, out of reach.

He catches himself and grabs fistfuls of his hair in both hands, letting out a jagged sigh. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Senses no better, huh?” she says quietly.

A shake of the head. A clench of the jaw.

“Well, at least the rest of you is… almost in one piece.”

His fingers graze over his side carefully, reading stitches like braille. He grimaces but keeps prodding, seeking out the most painful spot. She tuts at him and slaps his hands away.

“Don’t mess up all my hard work. I’m almost done, I don’t want to have to start over.”

Obediently, he returns his hands to the floor. She’s spent so long staring at tiny portions of his abdomen that sitting back and looking at his injuries in their entirety brings a lump to her throat once more. She covers it with a cough and the façade of disapproval: “And you made a real mess of putting that shoulder back into place.”

He shrugs – regretting it instantly with a cringe of pain.

“How many storeys was it?” she says, “The drop?”

He half-smiles. “Two or three, I think.”

She shakes her head and lifts her eyes to the ceiling to stop herself snapping a reply.

His eyes stare past but she can feel his attention on her like the heat from a flame. “You’re rolling your eyes at me?” he says.

“You can tell?”

“No. Just… an educated guess.”

“For someone with such a good education, you seem to have missed the basic fact that humans can’t fly.”

He snorts out a laugh and clutches at his broken ribs, putting on an admonished face. “Right.”

“Putting you back together is my job,” she says, quieter this time, and his eyes search out hers with an accuracy that makes all the tiny hairs on her skin rise to attention. She’s the first to break the gaze, unceremoniously tearing his pants around the wound on his thigh so that she can manoeuvre out the glass more easily.

She probably should have warned him beforehand.

His whole body tenses and his hands dart out to catch hers. She’s never seen him blush before. It’s about as cute as she imagined.

“Um.” His upper lip catches his lower lip and holds it – restraining a smirk.

She clears her throat, feeling a blush of her own on her face, “I need to, uh… remove part of a window from your leg.”

He relaxes an inch. “Sure, that’s your excuse.”

_That goddamn smile is going to be the death of you._

She removes his hands and places them on his stomach. “And it’s going to hurt.”

“Good.”

She’s speechless for a second. “Good?”

He shifts on the hard floor with a breathy groan. “It helps me focus.”

Another roll of her eyes. She braces herself to do what needs to be done, hoping she can get all the glass out in one go. “Well, Mr Tough Guy, let me know if the ‘focus’ gets too much. You ready?”

He gives a tiny nod in return. A muscle in his neck twitches. She resists the urge to run her fingers down his face and concentrates on the problem at hand instead.

“Okay, one, two-“

It’s a cheap trick, but it does the job. Before she’s reached the count of three she slides the shard out of his leg and clamps a wad of gauze over the wound. Matt lets out a deep grunt of pain and reflexively lunges forward into a crunch, hands forming claws that hover around the wound for a moment before he lets out a slow hissing breath and collapses back again, chest heaving.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

She shakes her head at him. “Did that help?”

A nod. A pained smile.

“I can beat you up some more if you like,” she offers, preparing her last set of sutures of the evening.

The smile remains, though his voice has taken on an exhausted slur. “I bet you can.”

She inserts the first stitch and he bites back a moan.

“Almost done,” she says softly, and hopes he doesn’t hear the disappointment in it – _because once you’ve done your duty, there’s no ‘beyond that’, is there?_

The flat glow of the billboard tints his skin blue, then green, then red beneath her fingers. After the first three or four stitches his breathing slides into a sleeping pattern and the tears that have been threatening to burst out of her all night fall silently down her face and drip onto her knees.

 

#

 

She only meant to sit down for a moment. Once he was all patched up she’d cleaned away all the piles of bloody gauze and dressing wrappers and discarded needles and packed up her kit bag. The muscles in her back screamed at every movement and her spine cracked when she finally stood up straight. She laid an extra blanket over Matt’s sleeping body, fetched herself a beer from the fridge and slumped down into the armchair with a groan. She didn’t want to leave him alone while his senses were still impaired. And she wanted to keep an eye on that concussion. She pretended to forget the fact that she could have just called his friend – the shaggy-haired lawyer guy – to take over. She would wait until Matt woke up, at least. Just to check. Just to make sure he was truly okay.

She was too tired to even lift her wrist to check her watch. And she didn’t mean to close her eyes – it was just a blink that lasted a little too long…

 

#

 

When she wakes, sunrise is competing with the streetlights outside the window. The makeshift bed on the floor is empty. The blanket that had covered Matt now lies across her legs. The beer bottle has been neatly placed on the floor by her chair.

Her bleary eyes squint around the apartment for her patient and find him sitting on one of the window ledges, framed by the huge stone arch. There’s room for two on the wide sill and she shuffles over to join him, tucking up her feet and hugging her knees to stave off the morning chill. Matt sits motionless, head leaning back against the brickwork, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, one arm wrapped protectively around his wounded side. She nudges his foot with her own. “I hope you’re not thinking about throwing yourself out another window,” she says.

His lips purse but don’t smile.

“How’s the head?” she asks.

He rolls it from side to side slowly in a tired negative. A long silence, then: “Can you hear the sirens?”

She rests her face against the glass. The familiar sounds of Hell’s Kitchen are muted through the window. Shouts. Drunks. Traffic. The beep of reversing trucks. The whine of cop cars. _He wants to be out there, fixing things_ , she thinks.

“They seem so far away now.” He waves a hand in front of his face, presses it up to the glass. “I can see the light, the dark, but… I can’t explain. Something’s missing.”

She scoots a little closer so their knees are almost touching.

“I took it for granted,” he murmurs, “Everything I could do. And without it, I…” He trails off, shaking his head again.

“You feel vulnerable,” she finishes. _Human._

He thuds his head back against the wall and she winces on his behalf “I feel… useless,” he growls through gritted teeth.

As if to taunt him, the shriek of a siren cuts through the air. Its pitch winds down as it passes the apartment and heads off into the dawn.

He twitches in response. She rests a hand on his knee. “It’s not up to you to save everyone in this city. The sirens will wait.”

He claws a hand into his side and twists away, sliding off the window sill and onto unsteady feet. “No, they won’t,” he snaps, “People are dying out there. Cops turning a blind eye... It’s up to me to make sure there aren’t so many goddamn sirens in the first place.”

She’s never felt the need to guide him before – he always seemed so sure of himself – and she stops herself from darting to his side now, even as he limps across the room, looking like he’s about to fall down any second. His accuracy is off and he clips the coffee table with his shin, making him stumble. Letting out an infuriated roar, he kicks the table over, but his wounded leg gives out and he falls to one knee.

Claire approaches slowly, waiting to see if he’s going to flip any more pieces of furniture, but he’s spent. He pulls himself up onto the couch, arms shaking with the effort, breath escaping with a hiss. Blood seeps through the dressings on his side.

Claire takes a seat beside him, as gently as she can. She doesn’t feel exactly qualified to give him a pep talk. She still wakes breathless from nightmares about baseball bats swinging towards her head. She might not have any super senses but she’s always felt like she can take care of herself, even in her grimy corner of the city. That is, until she met Matt and realised the darkness goes much deeper than she ever imagined. Her stomach knots when she remembers how tiny she’d felt in the trunk of that cab, bound and beaten. Like a child again. But he had come for her. He had understood.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” is all she can think to say.

She didn’t mean for it to break him.

He takes in a long, shuddering breath and she feels his shoulders shaking beside her. Tears drip into his lap. He reaches across for her hand, the backs of his fingers brushing against her thigh. For a moment they sit there, side by side, his thumb softly rubbing back and forth over her knuckles. She can barely breathe. She knows the longer she sits here, the harder it’s going to be to leave.

_Screw it._

She takes his hand in both of hers and brings it up to her mouth, pressing a kiss against the scars on his fingers. She can feel his eyes on her, even though she knows it’s impossible, and when she turns towards him he lifts her chin with his fingertips and pauses with his lips millimetres from hers.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she tells him. And this time she really means it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I accidentally wrote some more...

The next time she wakes, the sounds of the city are screaming in through the windows. She’s curled up on the sofa wrapped in a blanket that smells of Matt, but she's alone. She jerks upright, the memory of the previous night making her flush cold. She has a vague, exhausted memory of drifting off to sleep nestled into his bruised chest – the scent of blood and sweat and antiseptic on his skin, one muscled arm wrapped around her shoulders, holding her tight as if he was afraid she might escape in the night…

_This was a mistake._

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” She scrambles to extract herself from the blanket and scans the room for her shoes. She isn’t missing any other items of clothing – she’s not sure if she’s relieved or disappointed about that – but there had been a kiss. Enough to cross the line.

_This was a mother of a mistake…_

The sound of the shower drifts through from the bathroom. The thought of joining him springs to mind but she shoves it away.

_What is wrong with you? Seriously._

She spots one of her shoes underneath the couch and scoots down onto her belly to fish it out.

“Morning.”

She jolts backwards and freezes, ass in the air, one arm stretched out under the couch, wondering just how much Matt’s senses can ‘see’. She risks a look over her shoulder and is confronted by his stupid half-grin. More infuriating than that, however, is the sight of his body, still wet from the shower, wearing only a pair of loose boxing shorts. The lacerations from the night before are red and angry, covering the whole of his left side. His right shoulder has turned a garish purple, shaded with black and brown. He holds himself upright with only one hand on the door frame for balance but she can see the weariness in him.

“You really shouldn’t be moving around so much,” she says, extracting the shoe and slumping back against the couch with a resigned sigh, knowing he won’t take her advice. “Or kicking over furniture,” she adds, gesturing at the upturned coffee table.

Matt’s grin turns sheepish and he limps his way over, arms sweeping out in front of him until he finds a table leg. He rights it and joins her at the couch, sinking down with a series of grunts until he finds a semi-comfortable position. She pulls herself up to crouch in front of him, her medical persona more concerned with his condition than her primal brain is with his physique.

_Well, maybe it's a bit of both._

She inspects each wound in turn and gently manipulates his shoulder joint, ignoring the winces she gets in response.

“Do you ever just sit still?”

He shrugs. “Work to do.”

She sits back on her heels, satisfied that he hasn’t completely ruined her night’s work. “How about your senses? You seem… better.”

He tilts his head to the side, as if testing the air. She wonders how bad she smells after a night of stitching up a blood-drenched idiot. Matt on the other hand, fresh from the shower, smells like a fucking cinnamon roll.  

“Better than before,” he says. He must be able to sense her anxious expression at least, and offers a placating smile. “And I know the way to my own bathroom, regardless.”

She takes a seat beside him, all too aware of how easy it would be to rest her head on his good shoulder and close her eyes again. He doesn’t make a move either – again, should she be relieved or disappointed? – but she can feel him ‘looking’ at her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally.

_For what? For kissing you? For almost killing himself? For telling you nothing should happen between you and then-_

“You shouldn’t feel obligated to help me,” he clarifies awkwardly.

She pulls back, putting some distance between them.  _Obligated? What the hell? Is he… firing you? Can he even do that?_

“Why shouldn’t I?” she asks, anger winning out over incredulity.

“Because I’m not going to stop,” he says. “Getting myself into these situations.”

“Then you’re not going to stop needing help, are you?”

He shrugs, grimaces. “No, but, you shouldn’t have to be the one-“

“Who else is there? Foggy? He almost threw up the first time he saw me stitching you up. You told me yourself, you can’t go to the hospital. And even if you did, guess what?  I’d be there too. You can’t get rid of me, Matt, and I can’t get rid of you.”

Before she knows it, she’s on her feet, pointing a finger in his face, but he sits placidly throughout, as if he’s waiting for a bus and not being threatened by a raging, sleep-deprived nurse. He doesn’t reply for a long moment, and she wonders for a second if he’s lost his hearing, too. When he speaks, he doesn’t make an attempt to look in her direction. His voice is quiet and wooden.

“I can find someone else.”

“Oh. Wow. Really? That’s how it is then.” She takes a step back and stumbles against the coffee table. 

“Claire-”

She doesn’t bother putting her shoes on. She stuffs them into her kit bag and yanks the zip closed. _After everything. Everything you've done. Everything that’s happened to you. Because of him. And the stupid part is, that’s not even what hurts the most._

He tries to get up but has to stop before he’s even off the couch, hissing at the pain in his leg. She throws her bag over her shoulder and stabs a finger in his direction.

“Don’t make it worse.”

“Claire, wait.”

But she’s half way to the door. “Sure, you go find someone else. Someone who thinks what you’re doing to yourself is noble, right? Someone who won’t ask you to stop.”

He’s managed to pull himself up to standing, leaning heavily on the arm of the couch. He shakes his head, “That’s not what I’m trying to say-”

The tears in her eyes only make her angry. “I know what you _want_ , Matt Murdock, but you don’t know what you _need._ ”

_Oh my God, did you just say that out loud?_

It shut him up, at least.

He shuffles his way across the room and though she has all the time in the world she doesn’t try to leave.

By the time he reaches her all the fury has dissolved away, leaving her empty and exhausted.

“You’re right,” he says, taking her hands in his, a little clumsier than usual. “I know what I want.”

Her skin turns electric, like a million tiny sparks are igniting on the surface, all at once. She can’t breathe.

He must feel it too, because a smile crosses his lips for a moment, before faltering. He squeezes her fingers. “But I don’t want you to stay because you think you have to. Out of duty. And I can’t ask you to agree with what I do. It’s not fair. I know that. So-”

“So you’d rather we were both miserable and alone?” she says. _Some sort of screwed up lawyer logic, right?_

“I’ve been trying to come up with a solution and I… I can’t.”

She pulls her hands out of his grip and rests them against his chest. She can feel his heartbeat. His breath.

This was her decision. She was the one who cut this whole thing off. She said she would be there for him, she promised, but nothing beyond that. But he’ll never stop doing what he’s doing, so nothing’s changed, no matter how much she wants it to. _He's right. There's no solution that works. Maybe you're better off staying away from each other._.

She’s about to say so when she feels the muscles under her palm tense. He holds up a hand for silence, squinting up at the ceiling. Fear prickles up her spine. She knows that look. And he’s in no condition for another brawl.

She can’t hear anything, but a shadow passes across the skylights.  

“They know where you live?” she whispers.

“Must have followed my trail from last night.”

The usual calm concentration she’s used to seeing on his face in this kind of situation has been replaced by strain and anxiety. He grips her by the upper arms and pushes her firmly but gently towards the kitchen.

“Stay back. Get a knife.”

The fury rushes back up to greet her. She grabs his wrist as he turns away. “No.”

“Claire, we don’t have time-”

She gestures broadly at his stitch-and-bruise-covered body. “You can’t fight. Not like this.”

He ignores her and heads for the cupboard beneath the stairs, pulling out a secret panel and searching hurriedly for his batons.

Claire is already on the phone dialling 911. Matt hears the call and stretches out a hand to her, infuriated. “What are you doing?”

“Police,” she whispers down the phone, not having to fake the fear in her voice. “Home invasion. I think they have weapons. Please hurry.”

Matt curses and leans his forehead against the wall as she gives the dispatcher the address.

“They won’t get here in time,” he says softly, as she passes him on her way to the bedroom to grab his bathrobe.

“Hopefully, they won’t need to,” she snaps back, whisking the robe around herself and padding barefoot up the stairs. Matt lurks at the bottom, a baton in each hand, taking a battle stance in spite of the limp.

Her heart tattoos against her chest. She can hear them now – careful footsteps on the roof above, low muttering. _  
_

She adjust the bath robe and hunches her back, hoping they won't shoot at the silhouette she's making through the dark glass. She takes a deep breath and puts on her grandmother’s shrillest voice. _Time for the amateur dramatics._

“What the hell do you kids think you’re doing up there?” she yells at the skylight. “I’ve already called the cops you little shits. I’m sick of you out there, smoking on my roof. I know your mamas and I’m gonna be calling round first thing tomorrow if you don’t get your asses down from there right this minute!”

She’s answered by panicked scuffles.

“Don’t make me come up there…” she warns, rapping her knuckles against the door.

The scuffles intensify. She hears the clang of the fire escape. Swearing and shoving. Something like: “Wrong fucking place, you idiot.”

She waits there, back against the wall, sweat dribbling down her lower back until long after they must have reached the ground. When she heads back down the stairs her legs feel like they’re made of wood. Matt is waiting for her at the bottom, a strange expression on his face.

“Seriously? That’s all I have to do – pretend to be my crazy grandma – and the bad guys leave me alone?” he asks.

She can't help but smirk. "Worth a try, right?"

Matt's smile drops as the window in his bedroom shatters.

"Wrong."


	4. Chapter 4

This time he practically throws her behind the kitchen island. She scrambles behind the cupboards and braces for gunfire, or an explosion, or whatever happens when bad guys break into your apartment. But there is nothing except the tinkling of broken glass on the floor and the pad of Matt's bare feet as he creeps toward the bedroom. 

A second before she realises what has happened, smoke starts billowing from the doorway, followed by a whoomph and a searing heat that she can feel right the way from across the room. Fire alarms wail through the building. She calls out for Matt, terror in her voice, imagining he was inside the room when it caught fire - some sort of molotov cocktail, she guesses, tossed through the window, she can smell the slick, heady scent of petroleum - but when she looks over the counter he is safe, crouched behind the sofa. He turns back in her direction with a tight jaw, then nods sharply at the front door. 

"Go. Get everyone out." 

Claire nods back, but he is already on the move, skirting around the lounge to the huge arched windows. She doesn't want to leave him but the years spent in A&E force her emergency instincts into action, sending her sprinting out into the hallway and battering on the neighbours' doors. It can't be more than five in the morning and it takes a while to rouse anyone, despite the screeching fire alarms. 

A man in a ratty t shirt and shorts opens his door a crack and eyes her tiredly from the end of the hall. "Get back to bed, lady. The sensors are faulty. They go off all the time.”

A few other bleary faces join him from other doorways - pissed off, confused or murderous expressions on each and every one of them. She tries to keep her voice steady, even though she is shaking and wants nothing more than to race back inside and check on Matt.

"It's not a false alarm," she says, "You need to get outside. The police are on their way. Call the fire department too." 

"The police?" a woman across the hallway snaps, her eyes smudged black from last night's make up, "What the hell for?"

Claire lets out an irritated sigh. She’s wasting time.

_Maybe that’s exactly why he sent you out here._

"There were people on the roof,” she tells them hurriedly, “We think it's arson." 

The smoke from the apartment has begun to drift into the hallway now, and finally the neighbours take her seriously. 

"Oh my God," the woman shrieks, disappearing into her apartment and yelling at whoever else is in there to get the fuck outta bed. 

"They set fire to the blind guy's place?" ratty t-shirt guy says, shaking his head, "This fucking city..."

"I know," Claire mutters, ushering them all toward the stairs, "Just make sure you get everyone out. Please. Hurry." 

She knows she shouldn’t go back inside Matt’s place – every sense in her body screams at her to run with the others when she reaches the doorway and feels the heat in the air, hears the crunch of burnt-through wood. The fire licks at the living room floor now, tearing up the drapes and teasing at the edges of the rug – Matt’s bedroom can’t even be seen behind the wall of angry smoke.

She tells herself he must have got out. He’s not a complete idiot.

_But he’s injured too, and smoke inhalation can act fast…_

She shakes a vision of him lying collapsed on the floor out of her head and ducks inside, pulling the bath robe over her head and ignoring the shouts from the hallway behind her.

 

#

 

_He has to move fast._

_  
Except, moving in general isn’t easy, not when the aftershock of last night’s injuries pulse through him with every limping step, and his head reels at the onslaught of stimuli all around. He checks over his shoulder to make sure Claire has done as he said and left the apartment – his senses are still fuzzy but he can tell he is alone. He darts to his right, toward the windows, and presses his palms against the cool glass. The vibrations of heavy feet on the fire escape outside buzz into his skin, giving him details on distance and pace. Whoever threw the petrol bomb is still close enough to catch._

_He eases the window open and forces himself to trust his memory – for the first time since he was a kid, a shiver of alarm runs up the surface of his skin. What if his calculations are off? He was still functioning at half-mast. He’d survived the last fall but who’s to say he’d be lucky a second time?_

_He shakes the doubt out of his head and regrets it as the concussion almost makes him lose his balance._

_Stick’s voice comes grumbling through his brain:_ <You gonna do something, Murdock? Or sit here playing with yourself?>

 _Matt grimaces and shoves his legs over the sill, ignoring the rush of cold air that signifies a four-storey drop, and the push of hot air that represents his burning apartment. He has to focus._

_Two men. Medium build, both of them. One slightly taller. The stink of cheap beer and even cheaper deodorant. One is a smoker, the other only second-hand. They’d shared a car here. Fake leather seats and a pine tree air freshener. They’re wearing masks – he can hear their muffled breaths through the fabric. And they’re moving downward, probably to the alley below, where they parked the car. He had to get to them first._

_He lands as lightly as possible and swings himself down the ladder like a gymnast on the bars. There’s a trick to it – making your body forget how much it hurts, switching that part of your brain off for a while so you can get the work done. He feels stitches pop at his side, and takes a second to lament the fact that he is wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts – not exactly armour – but it can’t be helped. He will just have to move fast._

_He only has a few seconds of advantage as he drops down the ladder after them, but they move easily into defensive stances – they’ve been waiting for him, not trying to escape. They must have known he’d follow. They’re armed with crowbars – he can taste the metal in the air as one swipes towards his head – and he brings up his batons to deflect the blow._

_His senses are duller than usual, but better than the night before, at least – movements are blurred instead of pinpoint – but the flood of adrenaline guides him, and he forces himself to stop trying, stop looking. His body knows what to do and his brain is getting in the way._

_He ducks under another slash of a crowbar and comes up beneath the first attacker with a solid punch to the solar plexus that knocks the guy's arms wide and sends the weapon clattering into the alley. One down. But not fast enough. The other bar smashes down on Matt's shoulders, driving a gasp out of his lungs. He can feel the air shift as the second attacker draws back his arm for another strike. The ache of every bruise and cut and broken bone melts away as Matt fixes his focus on the fire inside – it’s still only an ember, but he feeds it with his anger. They came into his home. They burned it. They tried to kill him. And Claire._

_This is what he was made for._

_He spins in a crouch, taking out the guy’s legs at the same time as jabbing a fist into the other attacker’s throat. Both men go down, but Matt doesn’t wait for them to get back up – he slips into a cartwheeling series of kicks that make their targets with satisfying thunks, and the fire rages behind his eyes, turning the world crimson._

#

 

She keeps to the floor – half crawling, half running, one sleeve of the bath robe pressed tight over her mouth and nose, drawing the smell of Matt in to keep her calm. But the smoke finds its way in, regardless, stinging her eyes and lining her nostrils and choking her throat. She tries not to cough, tries not to breathe.

_Just a quick circuit to make sure he’s out._

But she can barely see through the blackness. Her guts lurch as she remembers his senses are still compromised. This would be even worse for him. Not to mention a busted shoulder and a body full of stitches. She drives herself forward on hands and knees, leaning against the sofa for support, the hot breath of the fire pinching at her skin. She can’t see a trace of him.

_And they won’t find much more than your burned out skeleton if you stay here…_

The glow of the billboard through the window feels almost cool compared to the red maw of the bedroom. The window. That’s what he’d been heading for. Sure enough, one of the arches hangs open. _Is he balanced out there on a ledge?_ Coldness grips her chest. _Had he tried to get out and fallen?_

She runs the last few steps to the window, ignoring the smell of her hair singeing as she throws aside a flaming curtain. She lets out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. An ancient, rusty fire escape snakes down the side of the building. Just as well – she can't even see back to the front door through the smoke. She pulls herself over the sill and falls onto the grating, lungs burning and spasming, not even enough air left to call his name.

_You know better than this. What has he done to your brain to send you running into burning buildings?_

She doesn’t have time to feel stupid. A thud and a clang below makes her jump. She crawls towards the ladder and peers over the edge – her breath catches in her throat, stifling a cry. Matt hangs by his fingertips from a grating on the fire escape three floors below, fending off two masked men who are finding easy targets on his half-naked body – his weak spots marked out clearly with stitches and bruises. Still, he holds his own, jack-knifing his legs up to slam into the chest of one of the attackers, and twisting into a flying kick that sends the other guy smashing into the wall. For a moment, she dares to hope it’s over – maybe he’s knocked them both out and they can leave the rest to the police – but the arsonists are already recovering, taking their time to flank him, well aware he isn’t on full form. Matt lets go of the grating and lands awkwardly, fumbling for the railing for balance. Claire can’t understand how he’s even still standing. Blood and sweat stream down his body, but he controls his breathing and prepares for the next attack.

She’s never actually seen him fight. Even in the Russians' taxi depot, she’d only been able to hear the crack of bones and thumps of punches in the darkness. And the rest of the time she only saw the aftermath. She lies there on her stomach, frozen, watching the effortless way he moves – how he anticipates punches and feints even before they happen, how he rolls with the body weight of his attackers and comes up on top. Except he can’t keep it up forever, not with the wounds he’s already sustained. And these men are clearly here to finish the job.

She half-climbs, half-falls down the ladder to the next floor, wincing as the noise catches the attention of the three men below. The taller of the masked attackers peels off and starts climbing towards her. Matt senses the move and tried to dart past the other but is driven back by a fierce flurry of punches. These guys are quick – maybe not trained in martial arts, but tough, dirty fighters who won't stop until their quarry goes down.

Claire looks desperately for a weapon but the fire escape is bare. She considers climbing further up but the heat of the fire lies thick in the air overhead. The fire alarms seem to double, then triple, until she realises sirens have joined the fray. Police. And firefighters. But they will be busy at the front of the building, or inside – and by the time they make it round to the alley, it will be too late.

A strange calmness settles over her. She can feel each footstep of her attacker approaching up the ladder, thudding through the metal and into the soles of her bare feet. She only has one option and it all comes down to timing. She has to be patient and let him come to her. This is going to hurt, but it will hurt him more.

The second his face appears at the top of the ladder she hammers her foot, heel-first, into the bridge of his nose. He goes down with a grunt, but climbs back up almost as quickly as before – by the look of his face, he’s had his nose broken a few times before, and isn’t thrilled about it happening again. She raises her foot to kick again but he grabs her ankle, yanking his arm backward and sending her sprawling on her back. She tries to flip over, gripping onto the grating with a terrified strength, but he twists her ankle so sharply she lets out a scream and her fingers fly open, instinct reaching down to protect her leg. The man drags her towards him, trying to pull her arms behind her back and closing a fist in her hair, wrenching back her head. She thinks she hears Matt call her name from below but she is too full of feral rage and fear and can only think of how to hurt this asshole so bad he will never get up again. Her arm slips inside the bath robe – Matt’s bath robe, far too big for her – and she sees her chance in cold, clear slow motion. Before he can get a better grip, she tears at the knot holding the robe closed and squirms out of it, kicking back as hard as she can, not bothering to even aim. The attacker scrambles for a fraction of a second – arms suddenly full of nothing but a cotton robe – and then he falls, cracking the back of his head on the ladder as he goes.

He doesn’t come back up again.

She slumps back against the railing and takes her own pulse to try to calm her ragged breathing. When she finally works out how to work her legs again she crawls back to the edge, expecting him to pop up at any second, this time with a gun in his hand, but all she finds is a crumpled figure at the foot of the ladder. Past him, Matt still struggles with the other guy and her stomach drops.

His movements are slower now, less certain, and a couple of times he misses completely, swinging wide with heavy fists. The attacker is taking advantage, timing his shots to cause maximum damage on Matt’s already battered body – a cross to the face sends him reeling; a punch to the dislocated shoulder takes him to his knees; a kick to the bleeding wound on his thigh curls him into a ball on the metal walkway.

 

#

 

_Every strike sends flames flaring through his senses – a little brighter, a little clearer, a little more intense. He’s taken worse beatings, some of them inflicted by Sticks, some he knew he deserved, but this one he’s hungry for. The fire feeds on it. Even if he misses his shot, even if he takes more than he gives out, it doesn’t matter. Each new bruise, each drop of blood turns the ratchet on his senses a little tighter, and he’d do it over again a hundred times if it meant keeping hold of them this time._

_But the cost is too high. He realises too late - if he wants them to beat his senses back into him, he's going to have to lose the fight._

_A fist crashes into his jaw, then another, across his cheekbone. His bad shoulder explodes with pain as a third punch – or was it a kick, he can’t tell any more – lands home. He’s on his knees, his body shutting down, standing its ground against his determination to keep the flame alight. A boot stamps down onto his injured leg and he folds in two, foetal, unable to take in a breath through the pain._

_The fire dims, his senses waver and fade into smoke. It’s too late. All he has left is the cold bite of the grating on his skin and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears._

_Sticks is whispering in his head again._ <I knew you didn’t have it in you. You never wanted it bad enough.> _  
_

_“You don’t know what I want,” Matt hisses back, silently._

_And then a voice – a real voice – the voice he wants – cuts through everything and sends the flame soaring._

 

_#_

 

“Matt!” Claire yells, throwing herself down the ladder to the next floor, but there’s another ladder between them and the arsonist stares up at her with a grim grin, freezing her in place. Matt still isn’t moving. He looks so small, curled up there, head tucked into his knees. 

_Matt. You have to get up._

He doesn’t even twitch.

“He’s done,” the masked man says, taking a step towards her.

Rage envelopes her. Her hand curl into fists by her sides, brushing something on the grating next to her. One of Matt’s batons - it must have been flung wide during the fight. Her fingers close around it. 

“Do you know who you’re dealing with?” she asks him.

The guy snorts, nudging Matt’s body with his foot in disdain. 

She’s creeping down the ladder now, baton hidden behind the rungs. “That’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” she tells the masked man. “And you don’t belong in his city.”

She throws the baton as hard as she can at the guy’s head, not even sure what she’s going to next but knowing she’s going to fight him until her last breath if she has to. The arsonist bats it away but stumbles a few steps back, regaining his balance.

It’s enough.

Before Claire can make another move, Matt uncoils himself and uses the distraction to deliver a precision kick to the back of the guy’s knees, sending him crashing onto his face, half dangling out of the last hatch of the fire escape. With a speed she can’t believe, Matt is back on his feet, grabbing the railing and putting all his weight onto his arms as he flips his legs above his head to knock the final retractable ladder off its safety latch. Claire has to look away as the ladder plummets down, in perfect line with the attacker’s back. She hears the clang though – the crunch of cracking bones - and turns back in time to see the arsonist's body tumble to the alley below. 

Matt hits the deck with a crash, not even enough strength to put out his arms to stop himself. She's by his side in a second, fingers brushing over his body, checking frantically for new injuries. He stirs, rolling onto his side, and pushes her hands away but doesn't let go of them. Something's changed - she can see the familiar awareness back in his face, the prickle of a hundred hyper-senses reaching out. 

He scans the air around them, tilting his chin up towards the man still lying in a heap up above them, and the body below. Neither of them are moving. Claire's eyes follow his senses. A lump jumps into her throat.

_He said he'd never cross that line._

"Are they...?"

Matt shakes his head once, sharply. "They're breathing."

She thought she'd be relieved but fear threads through her veins, sending her heard pounding again. "Matt," she whispers, "They know where you live."

The rest is left unsaid. If they're alive, they'll be back. With reinforcements. She can't believe she's wishing the death of two strangers. Even if they did just try to kill her.

"Where I _used_ to live," he says with a sad smile. "I'm gonna have to find somewhere else until I can afford a decorator."

Tears sting her eyes and she roughly wipes them away.

_They'll find you. They'll always find you._

And she realises the truth of it - who he is. How he couldn't stop if he wanted to. And how she couldn't live with herself if she left him to fight alone.

He rests a hand on her cheek, fingers trailing down to her neck, as if he's read her mind. "You know, it takes more effort to keep the other person alive in a fight," he says quietly. "I have to practise... precision if I want to stay the good guy."

She remembers the flash of anger she felt when the attacker was coming for her - how she wanted to make him stop... forever. She didn't know she was capable of thoughts like that. She nods, leans her face into his warm palm. 

"I know," she says.

For a moment they rest there like that, the only movement the rise and fall of exhausted breaths. The sirens have stopped but the shouts of firefighters and police officers approach from the side of the building.

"We have to go," he snaps, voice hoarse. He drags himself to his feet and feels his way over to the nearest window. Claire follows, trying to keep him upright - he seems oblivious to the fact that he can barely stand up straight. The apartment next to the fire escape is empty but the window is locked. Matt doesn't hesitate to change that with a jab of his elbow, smashing the pane and feeling for the catch on the inside with a deft hand. The voices in the alley are close - they'll find the arsonists before they wake up again, at least - and she and Matt slip into the dark apartment before they're seen. 

He stops at the front door to lean against the wall, looking like he might throw up or pass out or fall down or all three. She wants to let him rest but they can't stay here. And they can't walk out there with him looking like he's just done three rounds with the Hulk. She grabs a coat from a set of hooks in the hallway and wraps it around him, covering most of the blood and ripped stitches.

 _Looks like you've got more work to do tonight._  

"Ready?" she asks. His eyes are closed and she isn't sure if he really has dropped unconscious, propped up against the wall. 

He nods weakly, his eyes fluttering open and searching for her. It's impossible, but she tries to imagine his world on fire. What she must 'look' like to him. She's rewarded with a serious smile. "It was you," he mutters. "I thought it was the... the pain. The anger. What I needed to find my way back." His hands find her face and draws her closer, close enough to share a breath. "But it was you." His lips brush hers and she tastes blood. "I need you," he says.

She smiles into the next kiss, threading her fingers into his hair. "I told you so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, I accidentally burnt down Matt's apartment. Sorry 'bout that.


End file.
